Learning about bioeconomic models at the University of Oviedo

Bioeconomic models are powerful tools to integrate the ecological and economical components of a fishery and to determine appropriate levels of stock and catch. As part of her PhD and in line with the objectives of CLOCK,  Alba Aguión will develop a spatial bioeconomic model for the Stalked Barnacle fishery in Galicia. The model will integrate information gathered in Alba´s fieldwork, data obtained from the FOL agreement with Galician government and larval dispersal matrices that will be produced in the University of Aveiro.

As part of the PERCEBES project, other research fellows are developing similar models for the barnacle fishery in their regions, such as the University of Oviedo (NW Spain), where Antonella Rivera and Katja Geiger are leading the models for Asturias. Despite the Galician and Asturias models will answer different questions (and thus, have different components) the baseline models will be  similar and both will be contributing to the project. In order to coordinate the work and thanks to the expertise of Antonella, that has been working with this type of models as a PhD student and postdoc, Alba has visited Oviedo to learn about her work and the basics of these models in R. After a very productive week Alba is back in Vigo, ready to keep practicing with these models in R and start thinking on the most important components for the questions she wants to address.